


Natural Succession

by lorax



Category: Kings
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Yuletide, Yuletide 2010
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-26
Updated: 2010-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-14 03:24:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorax/pseuds/lorax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't until David is King that he realizes what it means to rule.  Written quickly for Madness, and unbetaed because of it!  Apologies for any mistakes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Natural Succession

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Odyle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Odyle/gifts).



In the long, dim halls beneath the Palace, David uses a light to guide him, and keeps one hand on the rough, cool stone to save his feet from stumbling over the uneven stairs. It's becoming habit, though, this trek down into the bowels of his Kingdom, and each step feels familiar and natural.

The guards stand in silent vigil, letting David step past them and into the rooms beyond. The change is startling, from the dim archaic halls to the sudden clean lighting and sumptuous furnishings. It looks like a lush hotel suite, save for the windowless walls. A pretty prison it might be, but it is still a prison.

 _"My father kept a rightful King here,"_ Jack had told him on David's first visit. _"I suppose it's poetic that you do the same. My father's heir in spirit, if not in fact."_ David had argued then that it was necessary, and temporary. Now it is an argument he doesn't bother to make. He will never win it, and he is tired already of waging losing battles. David can sway a crowd and inspire a nation, when he speaks from his heart. But when it comes to shadowy stairs and the reasons he has to invent for himself to make it acceptable for him to lock a Prince in his basement, Jack will always be the swifter mind and the sharper tongue.

Today, Jack holds a flute, his fingers light on the instrument and a hum of melody greeting David's entrance, ending in discordant notes that makes him wince. He tosses it carelessly aside as David approaches. "It's amazing the hobbies one takes up when one is a political prisoner that no one will ever remember to rescue," Jack says, and smirks. David sets the bottle of red wine he'd brought down on the coffee table, and Jack surveys it with disdain. "My sister's favorite. Did she pick it out?"

"No," David tells him. "We don't talk about you."

"For so many reasons. My crusading sister, now compromised by marrying the man who keeps her brother in the basement. Love really does conquer all."

Michelle is strong and beautiful, and she is good, but the crowns they both wear have tarnished them, and changed what lies between them. Michelle works for her small victories, and David for his. They lose the big battles so often, and it has turned them into allies instead of lovers. David loves her. He no longer holds to the illusion that he knows her, or that she is in love with him. They loved the ideals of themselves, the actuality of what they have become looks too different for love to survive its reveal. "She misses you."

Jack turns to him, stepping in closer. "I doubt that. Michelle was always very good at ignoring the things she didn't want to think about. I'm a part of her checkered past, best left forgotten. That's why she stays away." He cocks his head and smiles, thin and dangerous. "It makes it easier for you though, doesn't it? No passing in the halls on the way here, or hiding when you slink back with rumpled clothes. What do you talk about, if not me? Governing? Health Care reform? The flowers she ordered for my father's funeral?" Jack leans in, and his lips are warm against David's neck. "Do you talk about how much more you like it when it's a Prince on his knees for you, and not your Queen?"

"Just stop. It has nothing to do with her," David chokes out, skin flushing. Somehow though, Jack's baiting and barbs have become part of this. They are the punishment he needs to make up for the pleasure he takes, and the strange solace he finds in these rooms.

"No, it doesn't. It has nothing to do with Michele, this is all about you." Jack laughs, bitter and amused at once, smile still on his lips when it ends with the same jarring tunelessness as the aborted song David had heard him try to plan a moment before. "You'd think you'd be used to that by now. It's been about you since the day you faced down a Goliath." Jack's teeth drag over his jaw. "I nearly died, and my father raised up my rescuer, sealing his own fate. He handed you his Kingdom, his daughter, and his legacy." His fingers slide down David's stomach, outlining the shape of his cock through the fabric of newly tailored trousers that never felt as much his as his cheap, familiar clothes had. "I should have just done this the first time I met you, and let him have seen how you liked it. He would have cast you down into the dark with me. It would have been both of us left in these rooms, while my sister reigns in the sunlight above us as the kingdom forgets that there ever was a hero who slayed giants, and a Prince who nearly died." Jack kisses him hard, and David moans into it as Jack winds closer. "So what can I do for you, my King?" Jack asks, all mockery and faux servility.

"Don't call me that." All day long, the voices chorus his title. _My King, My Lord, Highness, Majesty_ , over and over until David thinks he's forgotten his own name and it sounds strange when Michelle says it, as if she's speaking to someone he no longer knows how to be. "You would have been a better King than me."

"I would have been more successful. I would never have been greater. And that's all that history will care for. History will love you. It would have measured me against what came before me, and what would come after, and left my flaws bared and my victories insignificant." Jack pushes him to the sofa, and David sinks down as Jack crawls over him, pinning him down as the discarded flute digs into his back. When Jack's mouth finds his again, David kisses back and his fingers claw at Jack's shirt, yanking up to find the bare skin beneath it. "You'll never be my King," Jack says, and David can't read the meaning behind the words. He's never been able to read Jack. He doesn't think he ever will. He's not sure he wants to know what Jack really thinks, beneath the sarcasm and the heated hostility of his eyes.

"I never wanted to be," David answers, feeling Jack's fingers digging bruises into his hips.

Jack laughs his wild, bitter laugh, the sound of it sharp as shattered glass, discordant as misplayed notes. "I know, David," he says, and then he kisses again, and David sinks into the power of it and forgets the words for a little while.


End file.
